Check out Linear Audio Volume 13 for a real tube DAC (with the actual conversion and clock done with tubes, not just a tube buffer).
Few definitions of hi-fi..
..ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) frequency response within the intended frequency range..
..a piece of electronic equipment for reproducing sound in a clear and accurate way..
But that something special is a similarity to the real music, not a difference. Is a way to reproduce the feeling of the music really playing in front of you. What more high fidelity could you desire?
I didn't talk about "coloration" or "distortion": if you think that this is what i was talking about, you're totally out of target.
I heard many different tubes gears in my life. Some added coloration, some added distortion, some simply reproduce music more true to life, like "being in front of the band".
The same i can say about ss preamps, but i never heard a ss line stage component sound as lifelike as some tube counterparts.
Obviously, a high end ss will sound better than a bad implemented tube analogue. But at same mid price point, i think there's no match.
I mean neutrality is not all, but it's a "conditio sine qua non" anyway: good tubes gears are as neutral as ss do, but they have some more "lifelike" information added to neutrality and linearity.
In this forum you'll find thousands users that do believe tubes circuits do sound better and more true to life than ss ones. Do you really think they are all stupid? Do you really think all the tubes fuzz is about euphonic distortion and coloration? It's childly simplistic IMHO!
Speaking about power amplifiers is a different matter: i can't find the same tubes superiority there, often i even find ss amps better: i think in power amplifiers lowest distortion really makes the game.
But i think here is not the place for long discussions about "tubes vs ss". I just reported my personal experience after listening to 3 different implementations, the best thing you can do is perform the same comparison, then we can discuss about what you and me we found. I simply wonder how much good tubes output ak4490 with good tubes preamps (i'm not talking about those ridicolous 12au7 gears) did you ever listened to.
Anyway, if you think to kidnap this thread and making it all about not believing, underestimating or criticizing what other experienced diyers report, based on your rigid and supposed "scientific" prejudices, then this thread will become very sad (mostly it has become so right now yet, didn't you notice? Many users lost interest on Jlsounds gears after your arrogant and aggressive discussions some months ago. You're not doing a favour to Jlsounds)...
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Please don't kid me: i was talking about adding in respect to ss gears, not adding to the original source signal. Didn't you understand a concept so simple?
Not adding to the source, just reproducing a kind of information that opamps output stage doesn't. So it's something "added" when compared to that one, that is lacking this information.
But maybe you really don't understand.
Only ready-made phrases and concepts applied to anything without even understanding what others are talking about?
This wall against comunication is a pity.
Anyway, to all the other readers who can understand and want to take out the best from jlsounds ak4490+i2soverusb combo, i tried different configurations and a good 7963 tubes output stage similar to bcf + battery power supply, IMHO, gives stunning results: one of the best dacs i ever listened to in the sub-10000 eur price range, maybe even above.
It's a simple and relatively affordable configuration. Just remember a 32/33 khz low pass filter (for ex. 2,2r + 2,2nF) on bcf or before and regulation of batteries voltage, that has to be slightly higher than needed (excepts anodes); discharge rates have to be largely abundant.
Just try to believe.
Electronics isn't believe, it is knowledge..
Yours tube output have few hundred times biger THD than opamp..
Yours tube output have few hundred times biger THD than opamp..
This is not a forum about electronics. This is a forum about audio (the word "diyaudio" means anything to you?).
Electronics is just a tool to obtain better audio, so having perfect electronics but less pleasant audio is not the aim of this forum.
But i'm sure the ss electronics we are talking about is not perfect, as they discard from the signal many useful subtle informations, like 3d spatial ones that some tube circuits preserve. THD is just one of the parameters an audio circuit have to observe, it's not all about thd, i even think in many applications thd is not one of the most important parameters: below certain level distortion can't be heard.
Anyway, real life sounds have some distortion too, as no vibrating surface is the perfect surface and no air mean is the perfect air. So distortion, at certain levels, can be very lifelike: that's why some ss audio components sound cool, sterile and "unreal".
Actual math (that objectively still lacks a complete comprehension of all listening fenomenons) sometimes doesn't meet pleasure. But we listen to audio for pleasure. Math is just a tool.
This is forum about electronics, hi-fi is electronic.. physical laws also apply to the audio.. although most on this forum believes that it is not so..
After all, read this thread from begining.. Joro use knowledge about electronics to make such good device..
Audio, adjective
1. Electronics. designating an electronic apparatus using audio frequencies:
audio amplifier.
2. of, relating to, or employed in the transmission, reception, or reproduction of sound.
3. of or relating to frequencies or signals in the audible range.
And what specific physical property of an electronic system preserves or discards "3d spatial informations"?
Math is a tool. A tool used in physics and electronics, but also in acoustic perception research, and from that research we know pretty well what people (on the average) find pleasant. It does seem to involve a certain degree of harmonic distortion and non-linear frequency response. This is not unlike how people find soft focus lenses produce more pleasing pictures.
Vulejov... maybe you forget that opamps take away the same as tubes add... so nothing is right...but what is right? You prefer skinny top model, but other pornstar look like girls 🙂))
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With pure electronics, it is easy. "Right" is to reproduce the recorded signal as accurately as possible, without adding or taking away anything. It is only when we move into electromechanics, acoustics and psychoacoustics that it gets tricky - not to mention perceptual psychology.
I tried a lot of ak4490...4495 opamp stages.One with opamps another with tube out. I like tube out more Will post thd measurement when i finish next one that i am working now.
What makes you arguments so simplistic is that you forget science doesn't know everything yet, if it was so then research would have stopped.
Many phenomenons have not been studied thoroughly yet. Every day something new is discovered and sometimes it adds so much to knowledge that it makes older models reductive.
So only silly and ignorant people can be so rigidly sure about the reality of phenomenons and their reproduction.
But probably this is not even the case. Probably you are simply like a daltonic person that tries to understand the word "colour": he just doesn't know what we are talking about and he thinks it's just fantasy that cannot be demonstrated. But it cannot be demonstrated just because he doesn't have the tools and the knowledge to do so.
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Whatever happens in the studio goes under "artistic choice", unless we start second-guessing the musicians, studio engineers and producers.
Of course. But let's not forget all the research that has been done in the last 100 years, and keeps being done.
Yes, but this is not a rocket science (or, rather, quantum physics and cosmology) forum. This is an audio forum, dealing with stuff that is pretty well understood.
Funny enough, I would say that only silly and ignorant people can be so rigidly sure about the reality of phenomenons they perceive subjectively, without resorting to external, objective verification and use of the knowledge and intellectual toils (such as mathematics) that we have developed over hundreds of years.